Thursday, March 03, 2005

'Darkie Day' filmed by officers

Police in Cornwall have confirmed they filmed an event in which locals black up their faces and dance through the streets of a Cornish town. Police shot video of the most recent "Darkie Days" in Padstow and have submitted a file to the CPS. Police said their action was connected to "allegations of disorder". But officers would not confirm reports that they had received complaints that the events amounted to incitement to racial hatred. The festivities in the pretty fishing town are thought to have gone on for more than a century but have caused controversy in recent years.

In 1998 the late Bernie Grant, who was Labour MP for Tottenham, condemned the tradition as "offensive to black people all over the place". Devon and Cornwall Police confirmed they had footage of the event on Boxing Day last year and New Year's Day. A force spokesman said: "The footage has been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service for them to consider what, if any, offences have been committed. "As they still have this matter under consideration, it would be inappropriate for the police to comment further at this stage."

During the festivities, revellers raise money for charity by dancing around the town and singing songs traditionally associated with the plantations. Its origins are unknown but one theory, now widely discounted, is that it dates from an occasion when local people saw black people dancing and singing aboard a slave ship which had been forced to seek shelter in the harbour.

Local district councillor Sarah Townrow said on Thursday Padstow residents were "fed up with being pushed around". She warned Britain was becoming a "nanny state", adding: "Nobody has got any malice in them. "I am sure there is no more trouble goes on at Darkie Day than at any other celebration in any town in the country. "We just want to be left alone to enjoy it."

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PC DESTROYS CANADIAN SCOUTS

It was probably intended to -- Scouts were too "patriarchal" and patriotic. And who would want to send their kid on a camp in the company of every sexual deviant under the sun?

Big Canadian real estate is on the market. A rather sizable chunk of Lord Robert Baden-Powell's Empire is available for investors, homebuilders, fishing resort prospectors, or blacktop barons. Scouts Canada is pounding in "for sale" signs at the entrances of a number of Scout camps across the country, including at least twenty camps in Ontario. But don't worry. No Boy Scouts will mourn the loss of their summer camps, for the Boy Scouts of Canada no longer exist.

Thinking they could become more inclusive, the Boy Scouts of Canada Board of Governors decided in November 1998 to admit females, atheists, agnostics, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals into troops. Despite that established troops were not even allowed to remain all-male groups, Scouts Canada approved the establishment of the world's first all-homosexual troop in 1999. The troop marches in homosexual pride parades and loudly symbolizes what Scouts Canada calls its commitment to diversity.

Scouts Canada's new non-discrimination code reads: "Scouting is a worldwide, multicultural movement. We welcome people to membership regardless of gender, race, culture, religious belief, sexual orientation or economic circumstances. Youth members are strongly influenced by the behaviour of adults. We need to be sensitive to the traditions and beliefs of all people and to avoid words or actions which "put down" anybody." And so, in its attempt to include everybody and everything, Scouts Canada is effectively dead.

Budgets have run dry. Troop halls and old campsites sit vacant. Professional staff salaries are severed. Membership is mostly decimated. In the past, membership roles consistently exceeded 300,000. Around the peak in 1965, there were 320,000 Boy Scouts. Today, despite a one third population increase in Canada over four decades and a doubling of the demographic possibilities (with female members), Scouts Canada has dwindled to a puny 130,000 and it is rapidly declining.

Open to all, there is a certain liability that accompanies the mixture of sexes and sexual preferences at Scout Camp. It is no coincidence that Scouts Canada's costs for liability insurance against sexual molestation claims increased dramatically by 2002 when, lacking adequate finances, Scouts Canada canceled its sex abuse insurance, and with it many "high risk" activities. Without the insurance, a single pedophile could potentially annihilate Scouts Canada forever.

Esprit de corps has evaporated. Last year, wearing a uniform at official Scout events became optional. Scoutmasters were deprived of the authority to demand the wearing of uniforms. "It's time to stop bickering about the clothes we wear," said Ms. Bonita Brick, chair of the National Scouts Youth Committee that handed down the uniform decision. "Accept the reality of change." It seems that change is not so attractive to the traditional core of Scouts Canada. "It is disheartening. Everything seems to be going down and down," laments veteran Scouter Bill Stauttener who manages Union Marsh Scout Camp which is set to go on the chopping block.

Eastern Ontario's Camp Apple Hill is expected to sell for just $30,000, a bargain considering that it is 300 acres. "It's very heartbreaking and very distressing," says three-decade Scout leader Pat Tugwood.

It may be a sad affair for some who've been around Canadian Scouting for a while, but I say good riddance to Scouts Canada. They ceased to serve any useful purpose the day they became all-inclusive, all-sensitive, and all-tolerant. The Scout Oath and Scout Law are obliterated in the land of the red maple leaf north of Parallel 49.

It is doubtful that this organization can be resuscitated. Political correctness, having infected whole institutions, does not easily reverse. But we Americans might well consider this malady and contain it at the border. "In meeting the challenges of a multi-faith society which is increasingly gay-positive, the [Boy Scouts of America] might follow the lead of Scouts Canada," urges a writer at ReligiousTolerance.org. And thus the far Left attacks the Boy Scouts of America, relentlessly for the past two decades.

There are prices to be paid by the BSA for standing on traditional moral values, but none so severe as this eulogy of Scouts Canada. In America, United Way funding may be cut, cities and school districts may abandon the Scouts, courts may order the Scouts to leave public property. But so long as the Scout Oath and Law remain intact, the Boy Scouts of America can survive. Goodbye, Scouts Canada. Political correctness is sure grand, eh?

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